1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improved mechanism for depositing fruit and, in particular, to such mechanism which can be used to fill a receptacle, such as a bin, with fruit.
2. Prior Art
Huntoon, U.S. Pat. No. 3,147,846, describes a similar earlier fruit-depositing mechanism for depositing delicate fruit, such as apples, gently and automatically in a fruit bin. Fruit bins customarily used for storing apples, for example, are approximately 4 feet (1.2 meters) by 4 feet (1.2 meters) and 2 feet deep (0.6 meters) internally. Since such bins, when loaded are transported by forklift trucks, it is unsatisfactory to deposit the fruit in only one location in the bin because one fruit is likely to be bruised by striking other fruit or the sides of the bin in rolling down from a mound of the fruit caused by jerking of the bin when being transported. Moreover, such fruit does not roll very readily unless the mound is reasonably high, which would prevent a bin being filled automatically to a substantially level condition. There is the further problem of depositing the fruit gently onto other fruit in the bin irrespective of the depth of the fruit. It is very undesirable to drop the fruit even a short distance because, while bruises would not appear immediately, they would be very likely to show up eventually. Even slight bruises detract from both the appearance and the keeping qualities of the fruit and consequently lower the grade of the fruit.
Even distribution of the fruit in a bin generally of the size mentioned above was accomplished by the mechanism disclosed in the Huntoon patent referred to above by rotating the bin and depositing the fruit into it at a location generally midway between the sidewall of the bin and the axis about which the bin is rotated. Bruising of the fruit was minimized by conveying the fruit into the bin in pockets of an endless conveyor, which conveyor included a curved discharge plate mounted on the conveyor frame at the end of the conveyor and a flexible apron extending from the lower portion of the curved plate, and providing relative elevational adjustment of the bin and the conveyor curved plate discharge.
While the Huntoon mechanism accomplishes automatic loading of a fruit bin with fruit, the fruit tends to drop into the conveyor pockets from a supply conveyor at the supply end of the depositing mechanism, which may result in bruising the fruit, and the pocket dividers of the Huntoon endless conveyor tend to "flip3[ the fruit out of the curved plate discharge, imparting momentum resulting in colliding of one fruit with other fruit or the bin walls, or producing friction between the fruit and the flexible apron, any of which can cause bruising or blemishes.
The conveyor system shown in the Fioravanti U.S. Pat. No. 2,956,668 includes swingable arms which support a flexible fabric forming conveyor pockets. However, to discharge the Fioravanti conveyor pockets, the support arms are swung so that the distance between the remote ends of the arms defining the conveyor pocket being discharged increases and the flexible sheet is drawn taut. This increases the momentum of the conveyed material insuring that it is discharged, but such momentum increase would tend to bruise or damage delicate articles.